In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept of a sky god who is addressed as a "father", often the father of a pantheon. The concept of "sky father" may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, the concept is complementary to an "earth mother".

In the early Vedic pantheon, Dyaus Pita "Sky Father" appears already in a marginal position, but in comparative mythology is often reconstructed as having stood alongside Prithvi Mata "Earth Mother" in prehistoric times.

Zhu, Tian Zhu 主,天主 (lit. "Lord" or "Lord in Heaven") is translated from the English word, "Lord", which is a formal title of the Christian God in Mainland China's Christian churches.

Tian 天 (lit. "sky" or "heaven") is used to refer to the sky as well as a personification of it. Whether it possesses sentience in the embodiment of an omnipotent, omniscient being is a difficult question for linguists and philosophers.

In Ancient Egypt, Horus was ruler of the sky. He was shown as a male humanoid with the head of a falcon, it is not uncommon for birds to represent the sky in ancient religions, due to their ability to fly. However, in Egyptian mythology the sky was perceived as the goddess Nut.

"Taevaisa" (Taevas = sky, isa = father) is the word by which adherents in Estonia of the Maausk (faith of the land) and the Taara native beliefs refer to God. Although both branches of the original Estonian religion - which are largely just different ways of approaching what is in essence the same thing, to the extent that it remains extant - are pantheistic, heaven has a definite and important place in the ancient pre-Christian Estonian belief system. All things are sacred for those of the faith of the land, but the idea of a sky father - among other "sacrednesses" - is something all Estonians are well aware of; in newer history, after the arrival of Christianity, the ideas of a sky father and "a father who art in heaven" have become somewhat conflated. One way or another, the phrase "taevaisa" remains in common use in Estonia.

The Liber Sancti Iacobi by Aymericus Picaudus tells that the Basques called God Urcia, a word found in compounds for the names of some week days and meteorological phenomena.[4][5] The current usage is Jaungoikoa, that can be interpreted as "the lord of above", the imperfect grammaticality of the word leads some to conjecture that it is a folk etymology applied to jainkoa, now considered a shorter synonym.

The theory about earth goddesses, sky father, and patriarchal invaders was a stirring tale that fired various imaginations, the story was important in literature, and was referred to in various ways by important poets and novelists, including T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and most influentially, Robert Graves.

1.
Jupiter (mythology)
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Jupiter, also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god, the two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a witness to oaths. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located and he was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the guardian of the state with Juno. His sacred tree was the oak, the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune, each presided over one of the three realms of the universe, sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually, Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart. The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had, Jupiter was the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested. He personified the divine authority of Romes highest offices, internal organization and his image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Romes ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours. The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiters name, to thank him for his help, they offered him a white ox with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiters statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying Jupiter in the triumphal procession, Jupiters association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Romes form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings, after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, nostalgia for the kingship was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state, in the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses —an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there, during the Conflict of the Orders, Romes plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office

2.
Sky deity
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The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have associated with the sky. The daylit sky deities are typically distinct from the night-time sky deities, stith Thompsons Motif-Index of Folk-Literature reflects this by separating the category of Sky-god from that of Star-god. Daytime-gods and Nighttime-gods may also be deities of a world, opposed to a netherworld ruled by other gods. Any masculine sky god is also king of the gods. Such king gods are collectively categorised as Sky father deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a Sky father god with an Earth mother goddess, a main sky goddess is often the queen. Gods may rule the sky as a pair, the following is a list of sky deities in various polytheistic traditions, by ethno-linguistic or geographic grouping. Hepit, goddess of the sky Teshub, god of the sky and storms Baltic Debesu tēvs, the god of the day-lit sky, associated with Ukko by some researchers. Ilmatar, virgin spirit of the air, Ukko, supreme god of sky, weather, thunder, crops and other natural things. Perkele, associated with Ukko by some researchers, a name for Devil in Finnish. Horagalles, Sami god of the sky, thunder and lightning, mano, Sami goddess of the moon. Zhinü, the weaver of the clouds Twenty Four Sky Emperors Six Tiandi of the North 1, bìhóng Xūkuàng Tiandi Six Tiandi of the South 7. Bìhào Zhēngxū Tiandi Six Tiandi of the West 13, bìfàn Míngyáo Tiandi Six Tiandi of the North 19. Bìxū Níngyáng Tiandi Twenty Eight Sky Emperors Seven Tiandi of the East 1, qiáotōng Zhūpǔ Tiandi Seven Tiandi of the South 8. Gāolíng Dàiwú Tiandi Seven Tiandi of the West 15, jiǔwēi Dònghuáng Tiandi Seven Tiandi of the North 22. Dàomíng Húnxìng Tiandi Thirty Two Sky Emperors Eight Tiandi of the East 1, tàijí Méngyì Tiandi Eight Tiandi of the South 9. Tàihuàn Jíyáo Tiandi Eight Tiandi of the West 17, wújí Tánshì Tiandi Eight Tiandi of the North 25. Lóngbiàn Fàndù Tiandi 32. Píngyù Jiǎyì Tiandi Sixty Four Sky Emperors Sixteen Tiandi of the East 1, jiǔyán Yùdìng Tiandi Sixteen Tiandi of the South 17

3.
Thetis
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Thetis, is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the 50 Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus. When described as a Nereid in Classical myths, Thetis was the daughter of Nereus and Doris, often she seems to lead the Nereids as they attend to her tasks. Sometimes she also is identified with Metis, some sources argue that she was one of the earliest of deities worshipped in Archaic Greece, the oral traditions and records of which are lost. Only one written record, a fragment, exists attesting to her worship, worship of Thetis as the goddess is documented to have persisted in some regions by historical writers such as Pausanias. In the Trojan War cycle of myth, the wedding of Thetis, the pre-modern etymology of her name, from tithemi, to set up, establish, suggests a perception among Classical Greeks of an early political role. Walter Burkert considers her name a transformed doublet of Tethys and you, goddess, went and saved him from that indignity. You quickly summoned to high Olympus the monster of the hundred arms whom the gods call Briareus, but mankind Aegaeon and he squatted by the Son of Cronos with such a show of force that the blessed gods slunk off in terror, leaving Zeus free —E. V. M. Willcock, have understood the episode as an ad hoc invention of Homers to support Achilles request that his mother intervene with Zeus, thus, she is revealed as a figure of cosmic capacity, quite capable of unsettling the divine order. These accounts associate Thetis with a divine past—uninvolved with human events—with a level of divine invulnerability extraordinary by Olympian standards. In order to ensure a mortal father for her offspring, Zeus and his brother Poseidon made arrangements for her to marry a human, Peleus, son of Aeacus. Proteus, an early sea-god, advised Peleus to find the sea nymph when she was asleep and she did shift shapes, becoming flame, water, a raging lioness, and a serpent. Subdued, she consented to marry him. Thetis is the mother of Achilles by Peleus, who became king of the Myrmidons, apollo played the lyre and the Muses sang, Pindar claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished by Athene and had a blade forged by Hephaestus, Poseidon gave him the immortal horses, Balius and Xanthus. Eris, the goddess of discord, had not been invited and she threw, in spite, a golden apple into the midst of the goddesses that was to be awarded only to the fairest. In most interpretations, the award was made during the Judgement of Paris, in the later classical myths Thetis worked her magic on the baby Achilles by night, burning away his mortality in the hall fire and anointing the child with ambrosia during the day, Apollonius tells. When Peleus caught her searing the baby, he let out a cry, in a variant of the myth, Thetis tried to make Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the waters of the Styx. However, the heel by which she held him was not touched by the Styxs waters, in the story of Achilles in the Trojan War in the Iliad, Homer does not mention this weakness of Achilles heel

4.
Comparative mythology
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Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes, the anthropologist C. Scott Littleton defined comparative mythology as the systematic comparison of myths and mythic themes drawn from a wide variety of cultures. By comparing different cultures mythologies, scholars try to identify underlying similarities and/or to reconstruct a protomythology from which those mythologies developed. To an extent, all theories about mythology follow an approach, as the scholar of religion Robert Segal notes, by definition. However, scholars of mythology can be divided into particularists. Comparative approaches to mythology held great popularity among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars, many of these scholars believed that all myths showed signs of having evolved from a single myth or mythical theme. For example, the nineteenth-century philologist Friedrich Max Müller led a school of thought which interpreted nearly all myths as poetic descriptions of the suns behavior, according to this theory, these poetic descriptions had become distorted over time into seemingly diverse stories about gods and heroes. However, modern-day scholars lean more toward particularism, feeling suspicious of broad statements about myths, one exception to this trend is Joseph Campbells theory of the monomyth, which is discussed below. Another recent exception is the approach followed in E. J. Michael Witzels reconstruction of many subsequent layers of older mythologies, a total science of mythology must give attention, as far as possible, to all three. Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, and religious studies and these are some important approaches to comparative mythology. Some scholars look at the relationships between the myths of different cultures. For example, the similarities between the names of gods in different cultures, one particularly successful example of this approach is the study of Indo-European mythology. Scholars have found striking similarities between the mythological and religious terms used in different cultures of Europe and India, for example, the Greek sky-god Zeus Pater, the Roman sky-god Jupiter, and the Indian sky-god Dyauṣ Pitṛ have linguistically identical names. Some scholars look for underlying structures shared by different myths, the folklorist Vladimir Propp proposed that many Russian fairy tales have a common plot structure, in which certain events happen in a predictable order. In contrast, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examined the structure of a myth in terms of the relationships between its elements, rather than their order in the plot. In particular, Lévi-Strauss believed that the elements of a myth could be organized into binary oppositions and he thought that the myths purpose was to mediate these oppositions, thereby resolving basic tensions or contradictions found in human life or culture. Some scholars propose that myths from different cultures reveal the same, or similar, some Freudian thinkers have identified stories similar to the Greek story of Oedipus in many different cultures

5.
Pantheon (religion)
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A pantheon directed by a thunderboltwielding autocrat might suggest a patriarchy and the valuing of warrior skills. A pantheon headed by a great-mother goddess could suggest an agricultural society. To confront the pantheon of the Egyptians is to confront a worldview marked by a sense of death and resurrection and the agricultural importance of the cycles of nature. The Greek pantheon is a metaphor for a view of life that values art, beauty, and the power of the individual. Max Webers 1922 opus Economy and Society discusses the link between a pantheon of gods and the development of monotheism, Pantheon can also refer to a temple or sacred building explicitly dedicated to all deities, avoiding the difficulty of giving an exhaustive list. The most known such structure is the Pantheon of Rome, first built between the years 27 BCE and 14 CE, the building standing today was constructed on the same site around 126 CE. It was dedicated to all gods as a gesture embracing the religious syncretism in the increasingly multicultural Roman Empire, with subjects worshipping gods from many cultures, the building was later renovated for use as a Christian church in 609 under Pope Boniface IV. Since the 16th century, pantheon can also refer in a sense to the set of a societys exalted persons. Wrigley, Richard & Craske, Matthew, Pantheons, Transformations of a Monumental Idea

6.
Solar deity
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A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms, the Sun is sometimes referred to by its Latin name Sol or by its Greek name Helios. The English word sun stems from Proto-Germanic *sunnǭ, the Neolithic concept of a solar barge is found in the later myths of ancient Egypt, with Ra and Horus. Predynasty Egyptian beliefs attribute Atum as the sun-god and Horus as a god of the sky, as the Old Kingdom theocracy gained power, early beliefs were incorporated with the expanding popularity of Ra and the Osiris-Horus mythology. Atum became Ra-Atum, the rays of the setting sun, Osiris became the divine heir to Atums power on Earth and passes his divine authority to his son Horus. Early Egyptian myths imply the sun is within the lioness, Sekhmet, at night and is reflected in her eyes, or that it is within the cow, Hathor, during the night, being reborn each morning as her son. Mesopotamian Shamash plays an important role during the Bronze Age, similarly, South American cultures have a tradition of Sun worship, as with the Incan Inti. Proto-Indo-European religion has a chariot, the sun as traversing the sky in a chariot. In Germanic mythology this is Sol, in Vedic Surya, and in Greek Helios, svarog is the Slavic solar deity, represented as a spirit of fire. During the Roman Empire, a festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun was celebrated on the winter solstice—the rebirth of the sun—which occurred on December 25 of the Julian calendar. In late antiquity, the centrality of the sun in some Imperial religious systems suggest a form of a solar monotheism. The religious commemorations on December 25 were replaced under Christian domination of the Empire with the birthday of Christ, the Tiv people consider the Sun to be the son of the supreme being Awondo and the Moon Awondos daughter. The Barotse tribe believes that the Sun is inhabited by the sky god Nyambi, some Sara people also worship the sun. Even where the sun god is equated with the supreme being, the Ancient Egyptian god of creation, Amun is also believed to reside inside the sun. So is the Akan creator deity, Nyame and the Dogon deity of creation, also in Egypt, there was a religion that worshiped the sun directly, and was among the first monotheistic religions, Atenism. Sun worship was prevalent in ancient Egyptian religion, the earliest deities associated with the sun are all goddesses, Wadjet, Sekhmet, Hathor, Nut, Bast, Bat, and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis, give birth to and nurse Horus, Hathor the horned-cow is one of the 12 daughters of Ra, gifted with joy and is a wet-nurse to Horus. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the sun was worshipped as the deity Re, and portrayed as a falcon headed god surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent

7.
Proto-Indo-European religion
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The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic, other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil. Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of deities in the Proto-Indo-European language from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more accepted among scholars than others. The term for a god was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius, Latin, deus, divus, Sanskrit, deva, Avestan, daeva, Welsh, duw, Irish, dia, Old Norse, tívurr, Lithuanian, Dievas, Latvian, Dievs. The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr and he is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity, *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr. *Hɑéusōs has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, derivatives of her found throughout various Indo-European mythologies include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Auštrine. The form Arap Ushas appears in Albanian folklore, but as a name for the Moon, an extension of the name may have been *H2eustro, but see also the form *as-t-r, with intrusive -t- in northern dialects. *Seh2ul and *Meh1not are reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the Sun, *Meh1not is reconstructed based off the Norse god Máni, the Hittite god Myesyats, and the Lithuanian god *Meno, or Mėnuo. They are often seen as the children of various deities. The usual scheme is one of these celestial deities is male. The original Indo-European lunar deity appears to have masculine, with feminine lunar deities like Selene, Minerva. Even in these traditions, remnants of male deities, like Menelaus. The word *prihxeha-, meaning wife has been reconstructed based off the Sanskrit word priyā, meaning wife, the Old Norse word frī, meaning beloved, and the Old English word frēo, meaning woman. The name of the Norse goddess Frigg is derived from this root, Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind, *Manu- and *Yemo-, his twin brother

8.
Zeus
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Zeus /ˈzjuːs/ is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter and his mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of the Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perun, Thor, and Odin. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, in most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses. He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe That Zeus is king in heaven is a common to all men. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak, in addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical cloud-gatherer also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses, standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his right hand. The gods name in the nominative is Ζεύς Zeús and it is inflected as follows, vocative, Ζεῦ Zeû, accusative, Δία Día, genitive, Διός Diós, dative, Διί Dií. Diogenes Laertius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς, Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph2tēr. The god is known under this name in the Rigveda, Latin, Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology. The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek

9.
Proto-Indo-European
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Proto-Indo-European is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language and these methods supply all of the knowledge concerning PIE, since there is no written record of the language. PIE is estimated to have spoken as a single language around 3500 B. C. E. during the Neolithic Age. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. Work has also gone into reconstructing their culture and religion, PIE had a complex system of morphology that included inflectional suffixes as well as ablaut and accent. PIE nominals and pronouns had a system of declension. The PIE phonology, particles, numerals, and copula are also well-reconstructed, today, the most widely-spoken daughter languages of PIE are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, French, and Marathi. There is no evidence of PIE. It has been reconstructed from its present-day descendants using the comparative method, the comparative method is based on the Neogrammarian rule that the Indo-European sound laws are applied without exception. The method compares languages and applies the laws to find a common ancestor. For example, compare the pairs of words in Italian and English, piede and foot, padre and father, pesce and fish. Since there is a consistent correspondence of the consonants that is far too frequent to be coincidental. Although his name is associated with this observation, he was not the first to make it. In many ways Jones work was less accurate than his predecessors, as he erroneously included Egyptian, Japanese and Chinese in the Indo-European languages, while omitting Hindi. In 1818, Rasmus Christian Rask elaborated the set of correspondences to include other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit and Greek, and the full range of consonants involved. In 1816 Franz Bopp published On the System of Conjugation in Sanskrit in which he investigated a common origin of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. In 1833 he began publishing the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic, in 1822, Jacob Grimm formulated what is now known as Grimms law as a general rule in his Deutsche Grammatik. Grimm showed correlations between the Germanic and other Indo-European languages, and showed that sound change affects an entire language systematically, august Schleichers A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages was an early attempt to reconstruct the proto-Indo-European language

10.
Dyeus
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Dyēus is believed to have been the chief deity in the religious traditions of the prehistoric Proto-Indo-European societies. Part of a pantheon, he was the god of the daylit sky. In his aspect as a god, his consort would have been Pltwih2 Méh2ter. This deity is not directly attested, rather, scholars have reconstructed this deity from the languages and cultures of later Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, Latins, and Indo-Aryans. As the pantheons of the individual mythologies related to the Proto-Indo-European religion evolved, the Latin word is also continued in English divine, deity, and the original Germanic word remains visible in Tuesday and Old Norse tívar, which may be continued in the toponym Tiveden. The following names derive from the related *deiwos, Germanic Tīwaz Latin Deus Indo-Aryan deva, Vedic/Puranic deva, Buddhist deva Iranic daeva, daiva, diw, etc. Even in Roman tradition, Jupiter often is associated with diurnal lightning at most. Dyēuss name also means the daytime sky, In Sanskrit as div-, its singular means the sky. Its accusative form *dyēm became Latin diem day, which gave rise to a new nominative diēs. The original nominative survives as diūs in a few fixed expressions, Finnish taivas, Estonian taevas, Livonian tōvaz etc. meaning heaven or sky, are likely rooted in the Indo-European word. The neighboring Baltic Dievas or Germanic Tiwaz are possible sources, similar origin has been proposed for the word family represented by Finnish toivoa to hope. Proto-Indo-European religion Tengri Tian Pokorny, Julius, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Indo-European *Deiwos and Related Words by Grace Sturtevant Hopkins, Language Dissertations number XII, December 1932

11.
Nut (goddess)
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Nut, also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky in the Ennead of ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a nude woman arching over the earth. The pronunciation of ancient Egyptian is uncertain because vowels were long omitted from its writing and her name Nwt, itself also meaning Sky, is usually transcribed as Nut but also sometimes appears as Nunut, Nenet, Naunet, Newet, and the certainly erroneous Nuit. She also appears in the record by a number of epithets. Nut is a daughter of Shu and Tefnut and her brother and husband is Geb. She had four or five children, Osiris, Set, Isis, Nephthys and she is considered one of the oldest deities among the Egyptian pantheon, with her origin being found on the creation story of Heliopolis. She was originally the goddess of the sky, but eventually became referred to as simply the sky goddess. Her headdress was the hieroglyphic of part of her name, a pot, which may also symbolize the uterus. Mostly depicted in human form, Nut was also sometimes depicted in the form of a cow whose great body formed the sky and heavens. A sacred symbol of Nut was the used by Osiris to enter her heavenly skies. This ladder-symbol was called maqet and was placed in tombs to protect the deceased, Nut and her brother, Geb, may be considered enigmas in the world of mythology. In direct contrast to most other mythologies which usually develop a sky father associated with an Earth mother, she personified the sky, Osiris is killed by his brother Set and scattered over the Earth in 14 pieces which Isis gathers up and puts back together. Osiris then climbs a ladder into his mother Nut for safety, a huge cult developed about Osiris that lasted well into Roman times. Isis was her husbands queen in the underworld and the basis for the role of the queen on earth. It can be said that she was a version of the great goddess Hathor, like Hathor she not only had death and rebirth associations, but was the protector of children and the goddess of childbirth. Ra, the sun god, was the second to rule the world, Ra was a strong ruler but he feared anyone taking his throne. When he discovered that Nut was to have children, he was furious and he decreed, Nut shall not give birth any day of the year. At that time, the year was only 360 days, Nut spoke to Thoth, god of wisdom, and he had a plan

12.
Geb
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Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth and later a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. He had a snake around his head and was also considered the father of snakes. It was believed in ancient Egypt that Gebs laughter created earthquakes, the name was pronounced as such from the Greek period onward and was originally read as Seb or some guess as Keb. The original Egyptian was perhaps Seb/Keb and it was spelled with either initial -g-, or with -k-point. g. in a 30th Dynasty papyrus text in the Brooklyn Museum dealing with descriptions of and remedies against snakes. In later times he could also be depicted as a ram, Geb was frequently described mythologically as father of snakes. In a Coffin Texts spell Geb was described as father of the snake Nehebkau, in the latter case, one of his otherworldly attributes was an ominous jackal-headed stave rising from the ground onto which enemies could be bound. In this context, Geb was believed to have originally been engaged with Nut and had to be separated from her by Shu, consequently, in mythological depictions, Geb was shown as a man reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards Nut. As time progressed, the deity became more associated with the land of Egypt. He is also equated by classical authors as the Greek Titan Cronus, ptah and Ra, creator deities, usually begin the list of divine ancestors. There is speculation between Shu and Geb and who was the first god-king of Egypt, the story of how Shu, Geb, and Nut were separated in order to create the cosmos is now being interpreted in more human terms, exposing the hostility and sexual jealousy. Between the father son jealously and Shu rebelling against the divine order, Geb takes Shu’s mother, Tefnut, as his chief queen, separating Shu from his sister-wife. Just as Shu had previously done to him, in the book of the Heavenly Cow, it is implied that Geb is the heir of the departing sun god. After Geb passed on the throne to Osiris, his youngest son, some Egyptologists, have stated that Geb was associated with a mythological divine creator goose who had laid a world egg from which the sun and/or the world had sprung. This theory is assumed to be incorrect and to be a result of confusing the divine name Geb with that of a Whitefronted Goose, also called originally gb, lame one and this bird-sign is used only as a phonogram in order to spell the name of the god. An alternative ancient name for this species was trp meaning similarly walk like a drunk. The Whitefronted Goose is never found as a symbol or holy bird of Geb. A coloured vignet irrefutably depicts a Nile Goose with a beak in a context of solar creation on a mythological papyrus dating from the 21st Dynasty. Similar images of this bird are to be found on temple walls, showing a scene of the king standing on a papyrus raft

13.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria

14.
Anu
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Anu is the earliest attested Sky Father deity. He was believed to have the power to judge those who had committed crimes and his attribute was the Royal Tiara. His attendant and vizier was the god Ilabrat, Anu existed in Sumerian cosmogony as a dome that covered the flat earth, Outside of this dome was the primordial body of water known as Nammu. In Sumerian, the designation An was used interchangeably with the heavens so that in cases it is doubtful whether, under the term. Hittite cuneiform as adapted from the Old Assyrian kept the an value, the earliest texts make no reference to Ans origins. Later he is regarded as the son of Anšar and Kišar, as in the first millennium creation epic Enūma eliš, An/Anu frequently receives the epithet father of the gods, and many deities are described as his children in one context or another. Inscriptions from third-millennium Lagaš name An as the father of Gatumdug, Baba, An/Anu is also the head of the Annunaki, and created the demons Lamaštu, Asag and the Sebettu. In the epic Erra and Išum, Anu gives the Sebettu to Erra as weapons with which to humans when their noise becomes irritating to him. When Enlil rose to equal or surpass An in authority, the functions of the two came to some extent to overlap. An was also equated with Amurru, and, in Seleucid Uruk, with Enmešara. There is direct evidence from Nippur that their patron god Enlil was once regarded as the head of the Sumerian pantheon. In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Enlil and his name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it. A consort Antum is assigned to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate. But Anu spent so much time on the ground protecting the Sumerians he left her in Heaven and then met Innin and she was later known as Ishtar. Anu resided in her temple the most, and rarely went back up to Heaven and he is also included in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and is a major character in the clay tablets. Dingir Hurrian mythology Khumban Mesopotamian mythology El Jordan, Michael, encyclopedia of Gods, Over 2,500 Deities of the World. New York, Facts on File, Inc, kramer, Samuel N. Sumerian Mythology, a Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B. C. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,1998 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Anu

15.
Sumerian language
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Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer and a language isolate which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia. During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a Sprachbund, then it was forgotten until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets left by these speakers. It succeeds the proto-literate period, which spans roughly the 35th to 30th centuries, some versions of the chronology may omit the Late Sumerian phase and regard all texts written after 2000 BC as Post-Sumerian. The term Post-Sumerian is meant to refer to the time when the language was already extinct, the extinction has traditionally been dated approximately to the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the last predominantly Sumerian state in Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC. The standard variety of Sumerian is called eme-ĝir, a notable variety or sociolect is called eme-sal. Eme-sal is used exclusively by female characters in some literary texts, in addition, it is dominant in certain genres of cult songs. The special features of eme-sal are mostly phonological, but words different from the language are also used. Sumerian is a language, meaning that words could consist of a chain of more or less clearly distinguishable and separable affixes and/or morphemes. Sumerian distinguishes the grammatical genders human/non-human, but it not have separate male/female gender pronouns. The human gender includes not only humans but also gods and in cases the word for statue. Sumerian has also claimed to have two tenses, but these are currently described as completive and incompletive or perfective and imperfective aspects instead. There are a number of cases, absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative/allative, locative, comitative, equative, directive/adverbial. The naming and number of the cases varies in the scientific literature, the different homophones are marked with different numbers by convention,2 and 3 being often replaced by acute accent and grave accent diacritics respectively. For example, du = go, du3 = dù = build, Sumerian is a split ergative language. It behaves as a language in the 1st and 2nd person of present-future tense/incompletive aspect. Similar patterns are found in a number of unrelated split ergative languages

16.
Deity
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A deity is a concept conceived in diverse ways in various cultures, typically as a natural or supernatural being considered divine or sacred. A male deity is a god, while a female deity is a goddess, the Oxford reference defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God, a plain deity need not be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, or eternal, however an almighty monotheistic God generally does have these attributes. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous, some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living beings body, as sensory organs, but in Indian religions, all deities are also subject to death when their merit runs out. The English language word deity derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or divine nature, deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European language origin to *deiwos. Deva is masculine, and the feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Latin dea and Greek thea, in Old Persian, daiva- means demon, evil god, while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones. The closely linked term god refers to supreme being, deity, which states Douglas Harper, is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, guth in the Irish language means voice. The term *ghut- is also the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo, Sanskrit huta-, from the root *gheu- An alternate etymology for the term god traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to-, the term *gheu- is also the source of the Greek khein to pour. Originally the German root was a noun, but the gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity. In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities, the term deity often connotes the concept of sacred or divine, as a god or goddess, in a polytheistic religion. However, there is no accepted consensus concept of deity across religions and cultures. Huw Owen states that the deity or god or its equivalent in other languages has a bewildering range of meanings. Some engravings or sketches show animals, hunters or rituals, the Venus of Willendorf, a female figurine found in Europe and dated to about 25,000 BCE has been interpreted as an exemplar of a prehistoric divine feminine. In Buddhist mythology, devas are beings inhabiting certain happily placed worlds of Buddhist cosmology and these beings are mortal and numerous. It is also common for iṣṭadevatās to be called deities, although the nature of Yidams is distinct from what is meant by the term. Buddhism does not believe in a creator deity, however, deities are an essential part of Buddhist cosmology, rebirth and Saṃsāra doctrines

17.
Sumerian religion
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The Sumerian religion influenced Mesopotamian mythology as a whole, surviving in the mythologies and religions of the Hurrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and other culture groups. Sumerian myths were passed down through the tradition until the invention of writing. In the Sumerian city-states, temple complexes originally were small, elevated one-room structures, in the early dynastic period, temples developed raised terraces and multiple rooms. Toward the end of the Sumerian civilization, Ziggurats became the temple structure for Mesopotamian religious centers. This is in the crescent and between the Tigris and Euphrates river. Until the advent of the lugals, Sumerian city states were under a virtually theocratic government controlled by various En or Ensí, priests were responsible for continuing the cultural and religious traditions of their city-state, and were viewed as mediators between humans and the cosmic and terrestrial forces. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization’s survival. During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian city-state of Lagash was said to have had 62 lamentation priests who were accompanied by 180 vocalists and instrumentalists, the Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea. Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld, the deity of the dome-shaped firmament was named An, the earth was named Ki. First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, the primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the Sumerian Renaissance. According to Sumerian mythology, the gods created humans as servants for themselves. The primordial union of An and Ki produced Enlil, who leader of the Sumerian pantheon. After the other deities banished Enlil from Dilmun for raping the air goddess Ninlil, she had a child, Nanna, Nanna and Ningal gave birth to Inanna, the goddess of war and fertility, and to Utu, god of the sun. The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic, during the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian deities became more anthropocentric and were. nature gods transformed into city gods. Deities such as Enki and Inanna were viewed as having been assigned their rank, power, and knowledge from An, the heavenly deity, or Enlil, head of the Sumerian pantheon. The earliest historical records of Sumer do not go much further than c.2900 BC. The earliest Sumerian literature of the 3rd millennium BC identifies four primary deities, Anu, Enlil, Ninhursag, the highest order of these earliest gods were described occasionally behaving mischievously towards each other, but were generally involved in co-operative creative ordering. Lists of large numbers of Sumerian deities have been found and their order of importance and the relationships between the deities has been examined during the study of cuneiform tablets

18.
Prithvi
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Prithvi the Vast One is the Sanskrit name for the earth as well as the name of a devi in Hinduism and some branches of Buddhism. As Pṛthvī Mātā Mother Earth she contrasts with Dyaus Pita father sky, in the Rigveda, Earth and Sky are primarily addressed in the dual as Dyavaprthivi. She is associated with the cow, prithu, an incarnation of Vishnu, milked her in cows form. She is a personification in Indonesia, where she is known as Ibu Pertiwi. In Buddhist texts and visual representations, Pṛthvī is described as both protecting Gautama Buddha and as being his witness for his enlightenment, prithvi appears in Early Buddhism in the Pāli Canon, dispelling the temptation figure Mara by attesting to Gautama Buddhas worthiness to attain enlightenment. The Buddha is very frequently illustrated in figurative art wielding bhūmisparśa or earth-touching mudrā, pṛithvī Sūkta or Bhūmī Sūkta is a celebrated hymn of the Atharvaveda dedicated to Prthivi. The Rig Veda, an anthology, one hundred and eight hymns, dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend by Anna Dallapiccola Hindu Goddesses, Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions by David Kinsley

19.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid

20.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC

21.
Eagle
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Eagle is a common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae, it belongs to several groups of genera that are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the 60 species of eagles are from Eurasia and Africa, outside this area, just 14 species can be found – two in North America, nine in Central and South America, and three in Australia. Eagles are large, powerfully built birds of prey, with heavy heads, most eagles are larger than any other raptors apart from some vultures. The smallest species of eagle is the South Nicobar serpent eagle, the largest species are discussed below. Like all birds of prey, eagles have large, hooked beaks for ripping flesh from their prey, strong, muscular legs. The beak is typically heavier than that of most other birds of prey, Eagles eyes are extremely powerful, having up to 3.6 times human acuity for the martial eagle, which enables them to spot potential prey from a very long distance. This keen eyesight is primarily attributed to their extremely large pupils which ensure minimal diffraction of the incoming light, the female of all known species of eagles is larger than the male. Eagles normally build their nests, called eyries, in trees or on high cliffs. Many species lay two eggs, but the older, larger chick frequently kills its younger sibling once it has hatched, the dominant chick tends to be a female, as they are bigger than the male. The parents take no action to stop the killing, due to the size and power of many eagle species, they are ranked at the top of the food chain as apex predators in the avian world. The type of prey varies by genus, the snake and serpent eagles of the genera Circaetus, Terathopius, and Spilornis predominantly prey on the great diversity of snakes found in the tropics of Africa and Asia. The eagles of the genus Aquila are often the top birds of prey in open habitats, where Aquila eagles are absent, other eagles, such as the buteonine black-chested buzzard-eagle of South America, may assume the position of top raptorial predator in open areas. Many other eagles, including the species-rich Spizaetus genus, live predominantly in woodlands and these eagles often target various arboreal or ground-dwelling mammals and birds, which are often unsuspectingly ambushed in such dense, knotty environments. Hunting techniques differ among the species and genera, with some individual eagles having engaged in quite varied techniques based their environment, most eagles grab prey without landing and take flight with it, so the prey can be carried to a perch and torn apart. The bald eagle is noted for having flown with the heaviest load verified to be carried by any flying bird, golden and crowned eagles have killed ungulates weighing up to 30 kg and a martial eagle even killed a 37 kg duiker, 7–8 times heavier than the preying eagle. It has been observed that most birds of prey look back over their shoulders before striking prey, all hawks seem to have this habit, from the smallest kestrel to the largest Ferruginous – but not the Eagles. Among the eagles are some of the largest birds of prey, only the condors and it is regularly debated which should be considered the largest species of eagle. They could be measured variously in total length, body mass, different lifestyle needs among various eagles result in variable measurements from species to species

22.
Hawk
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Hawks are a group of medium-sized diurnal birds of prey of the family Accipitridae which are widely distributed and varying greatly in size. The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, the sharp-shinned hawk and these are mainly woodland birds with long tails and high visual acuity, hunting by sudden dashes from a concealed perch. In the Americas, members of the Buteo group are also called hawks, generally buteos have broad wings and sturdy builds. They are relatively larger winged, shorter-tailed and soar more extensively in areas than accipiters. The terms accipitrine hawk and buteonine hawk may be used to distinguish the two types, in regions where hawk applies to both, the term true hawk is sometimes used for the accipitrine hawks, in regions where buzzard is preferred for the buteonine hawks. All these groups are members of the Accipitridae family, which includes the hawks and buzzards as well as kites, harriers, some authors use hawk generally for any small to medium Accipitrid that is not an eagle. The common names of birds include the term hawk, reflecting traditional usage rather than taxonomy. Falconry was also called hawking, and any bird used for falconry could be referred to as a hawk, aristotle listed eleven types of ἱέρακες, aisalōn, asterias, hypotriorchēs, kirkos, leios, perkos, phassophonos, phrynologos, pternis, spizias, and triorchēs. Pliny numbered sixteen kinds of hawks, but named only aigithos, epileios, kenchrēïs, kybindis, the accipitrine hawks generally take birds as their primary prey. They have also been called hen-hawks, or wood-hawks because of their woodland habitat, the subfamily Accipitrinae contains Accipiter, it also contains genera Micronisus, Urotriorchis, and Megatriorchis. Melierax may be included in the subfamily, or given a subfamily of its own, erythrotriorchis is traditionally included in Accipitrinae, but is possibly a convergent genus from an unrelated group. The Buteo group includes genera Buteo, Parabuteo, Geranoetus, members of this group have also been called hawk-buzzards. Proposed new genera Morphnarchus, Rupornis, and Pseudastur are formed from members of Buteo, the Buteogallus group are also called hawks, with the exception of the solitary eagles. Buteo is the genus of the subfamily Buteoninae. Traditionally this subfamily also includes eagles and sea-eagles, lerner and Mindell proposed placing those into separate subfamilies, leaving just the buteonine hawks/buzzards in Buteoninae. In February 2005, the Canadian ornithologist Louis Lefebvre announced a method of measuring avian IQ in terms of their innovation in feeding habits, Hawks were named among the most intelligent birds based on his scale. Hawks have four types of receptors in the eye. These give birds the ability to not only the visible range but also the ultraviolet part of the spectrum

23.
Uranus (mythology)
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Uranus was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His name in Roman mythology was Caelus, in Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiods Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, elemental Earth, Sky and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic. The most probable etymology traces the name to a Proto-Greek form *worsanós enlarged from *ṷorsó-, the basic Indo-European root is *ṷérs- ‘to rain, moisten’, making Ouranos the ‘rainmaker’. A less likely etymology is a derivative with meaning ‘the one standing on high’ from PIE *ṷérso-, georges Dumézil’s equation of Ouranos’ name with that of the Vedic deity Váruṇa, god of the sky and waters, is etymologically untenable. In Hesiods Theogony, Uranus is the offspring of Gaia, the earth goddess, alcman and Callimachus elaborate that Uranus was fathered by Aether, the god of heavenly light and the upper air. Under the influence of the philosophers, Cicero, in De Natura Deorum, claims that he was the offspring of the ancient gods Aether and Hemera, Air, according to the Orphic Hymns, Uranus was the son of Nyx, the personification of night. Uranus was the brother of Pontus, the God of the sea, further, according to the Theogony, when Cronus castrated Uranus, from Uranus blood, which splattered onto the earth, came the Erinyes, the Giants, and the Meliae. In the Olympian creation myth, as Hesiod tells it in the Theogony, Uranus came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. Hesiod named their first six sons and six daughters the Titans, Uranus imprisoned Gaias youngest children in Tartarus, deep within Earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She shaped a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus, only Cronus, youngest and most ambitious of the Titans, was willing, he ambushed his father and castrated him, casting the severed testicles into the sea. For this fearful deed, Uranus called his sons Titanes Theoi, from the blood that spilled from Uranus onto the Earth came forth the Giants, the Erinyes, the Meliae, and, according to some, the Telchines. From the genitals in the sea came forth Aphrodite, after Uranus was deposed, Cronus re-imprisoned the Hekatonkheires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Uranus and Gaia then prophesied that Cronus in turn was destined to be overthrown by his own son, zeus, through deception by his mother Rhea, avoided this fate. These ancient myths of distant origins were not expressed in cults among the Hellenes, the function of Uranus was as the vanquished god of an elder time, before real time began. After his castration, the Sky came no more to cover the Earth at night, but held to its place, Uranus was scarcely regarded as anthropomorphic, aside from the genitalia in the castration myth. He was simply the sky, which was conceived by the ancients as a dome or roof of bronze. Olympus is almost always used of, but ouranos often refers to the sky above us without any suggestion that the gods

24.
Ukko
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Ukko, or Äijä or Äijö, parallel in Estonian mythology to Uku, is the god of the sky, weather, harvest and thunder in Finnish mythology. The Finnish word for thunder, Ukkonen, is the form of the name Ukko. Some researchers believe that Ilmarinen, another Finnic sky god, is the origin of Ukko, Ukko is held the most significant god of Finnish mythology, although it is disputed by scholars whether this is accountable to later Christian influence. In the folk poems and prayers he is given the epithet Ylijumala, probably in reference to his status as the most highly regarded god. Other names for Ukko include Pitkänen, Isäinen, Isoinen, although portrayed active in myth, Ukko makes all his appearances in legend solely by natural phenomena when appealed to. According to Haavio, the name Ukko was sometimes used as a noun or generalised epithet for multiple deities instead of denoting a specific god. It is likely that the figure of Ukko is mostly Indo-European, possibly Baltic, tuuri, a Germanic loan and cognate of Thor, was possibly an alternate name for Ukko. Tuuri is rarely encountered in Finnish mythology, and had relegated to the mere role of deity of harvest. It is possible that when Ukko took the position of the sky god Ilmarinen. Stories tell about Ilmarinen vaulting the sky-dome, whether Ilmarinen was an earlier, assumably Uralic sky deity is regardless highly questionable. Some researchers hold Ilmarinen and Ukko equivalent, the Sami worshipped a similar deity, called Aijeke, probably as result of cultural cross-contamination or common origin. The god was equated with Horagalles, Ukko possessed a weapon, often a hammer called Ukonvasara, sometimes also an axe or a sword, by which he struck lightning. Ukkos weapon was largely comparable to the Norse Mjölnir, and Iron Age emblematic pendants depicting hammers, like Mjölnir, Ukkos weapon has been linked by some to the boat-shaped battle axes of the Corded Ware culture. Thunderbolts were sometimes called Ukon vaaja or Ukon nuoli and it is possible that the Birch bark letter no. He also was believed to cause thunderstorms by driving his chariot through the skies, a viper with a serrated line on its back was considered a symbol of thunder. Neolithic stone carvings have found in Russian Karelia which have features of both snakes and lightning. It is, however, uncertain whether these are connected to the figure of Ukko. Evidence for worship of snakes is found among different cultures around the Baltic, there is evidence that the rowan tree was held sacred to Ukko

25.
Finnish mythology
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Finnish mythology is a commonly applied description of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its neighbours, the Balts. Some of their myths are also related to the myths of other Finno-Ugric speakers like the Samis. Finnish mythology survived within a tradition of mythical poem-singing and folklore well into the 19th century. Although the gradual influence of surrounding cultures raised the significance of the sky-god in a monolatristic manner, of the animals, the most sacred was the bear, whose real name was never uttered out loud, lest his kind be unfavorable to the hunting. The bear was seen as the embodiment of the forefathers, and for this reason it was called by many circumlocutions, mesikämmen, otso, kontio, metsän kultaomena but not a god. The first historical mention of Finnish folk religion was by the bishop, Agricola supplied a list of purported deities of the Häme and Karjala, twelve deities in each region, with their supposed functions briefly set out in verse form. Due to the lists, Agricola is considered to be the father of the study of Finnish religious history, cristfried Gananders Mythologia Fennica, published in 1789, was the first truly scholarly foray into Finnish mythology. In the 19th century, research into Finnish folklore intensified, scholars like Elias Lönnrot, J. F. Cajan, M. A. Castrén, and D. E. D. Europaeus travelled around Finland writing down folk poetry sung by runo singers, the genres they collected included material like the synnyt, which give mythical accounts of the origins of many natural phenomena. From this material Lönnrot edited the Kalevala as well as the Kanteletar, the wealth of folk poetry collected in the 19th century often deals with pre-Christian pagan themes, and has allowed scholars to study Finnish mythology in more detail. The world was believed to have formed out of a pochard egg. The sky was believed to be the cover of the egg, alternately it was seen as a tent. The movement of the stars was explained to be caused by the rotation around the North Star. A great whirl was caused at the pole by the rotation of column of sky. Through this whirl souls could go to the outside of the world to the land of dead, Earth was believed to be flat. At the edges of Earth was Lintukoto, the home of the birds, the Milky Way is called Linnunrata, the path of the birds, because the birds were believed to move along it to Lintukoto and back. In Modern Finnish usage, the word means an imaginary happy, warm

26.
Rangi and Papa
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In Māori mythology the primal couple Rangi and Papa appear in a creation myth explaining the origin of the world. In some South Island dialects, Rangi is called Raki or Rakinui, Ranginui and Papatuanuku are the primordial parents, the sky father and the earth mother who lie locked together in a tight embrace. They have many children all of whom are male, who are forced to live in the darkness between them. These children grow and discuss among themselves what it would be like to live in the light, Tūmatauenga, the fiercest of the children, proposes that the best solution to their predicament is to kill their parents. But his brother Tāne disagrees, suggesting that it is better to push them apart, in spite of their joint efforts Rangi and Papa remain close together in their loving embrace. After many attempts Tāne, god of forests and birds, forces his parents apart, instead of standing upright and pushing with his hands as his brothers have done, he lies on his back and pushes with his strong legs. Stretching every sinew Tāne pushes and pushes until, with cries of grief and surprise, Ranginui, and so the children of Ranginui and Papatuanuku see light and have space to move for the first time. While the other children have agreed to the separation Tāwhirimātea, the god of storms and winds, is angered that the parents have been torn apart. He cannot bear to hear the cries of his parents nor see the tears of Ranginui as they are parted and he flies off to join Rangi and there carefully fosters his own many offspring who include the winds, one of whom is sent to each quarter of the compass. As these winds show their might the dust flies and the great forest trees of Tāne are smashed under the attack and fall to the ground, food for decay and for insects. Then Tāwhirimātea attacks the oceans and huge waves rise, whirlpools form, and Tangaroa, punga, a son of Tangaroa, has two children, Ikatere father of fish, and Tu-te-wehiwehi the ancestor of reptiles. Terrified by Tāwhirimātea’s onslaught the fish seek shelter in the sea, ever since Tangaroa has been angry with Tāne for giving refuge to his runaway children. So it is that Tāne supplies the descendants of Tūmatauenga with canoes, fishhooks, Tangaroa retaliates by swamping canoes and sweeping away houses, land and trees that are washed out to sea in floods. Tāwhirimātea next attacks his brothers Rongo and Haumia-tiketike, the gods of cultivated and uncultivated foods. Rongo and Haumia are in fear of Tāwhirimātea but, as he attacks them, Papatuanuku determines to keep these for her other children. So Tāwhirimātea turns on his brother Tūmatauenga and he uses all his strength but Tūmatauenga stands fast and Tāwhirimatea cannot prevail against him. Tū stands fast and, at last, the anger of the gods subsided, tū thought about the actions of Tāne in separating their parents and made snares to catch the birds, the children of Tāne who could no longer fly free. He then made nets from forest plants and casts them in the sea so that the children of Tangaroa soon lie in heaps on the shore

27.
Hawaiian religion
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Hawaiian religion encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Native Hawaiians. It is polytheistic and animistic, with a belief in deities and spirits, including the belief that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as animals, the waves. Hawaiian religion originated among the Tahitians and other Pacific islanders who landed in Hawaiʻi between 500 and 1300 AD, today, Hawaiian religious practices are protected by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Traditional Hawaiian religion is unrelated to the modern New Age practice known as Huna, Hawaiian religion is polytheistic, with four deities most prominent, Kāne, Kū, Lono and Kanaloa. Other notable deities include Laka, Kihawahine, Haumea, Papahānaumoku, in addition, each family is considered to have one or more guardian spirits known as ʻaumakua that protected family. The Kumulipo is divided two sections, night, or pō, and day, or ao, with the former corresponding to divinity. This, in turn, illustrates the transition of mankind from being symbols for the gods into the keeper of these symbols in the form of idols, the Kumulipo was recited during the time of Makahiki, to honor the god of fertility, Lono. The kahuna were well respected, educated individuals that made up a social class that served the King. Selected to serve many practical and governmental purposes, Kahuna often were healers, navigators, builders, prophets/temple workers and they also talked with the spirits. Kahuna Kūpaʻiulu of Maui in 1867 described a ritual to heal someone ill due to hoʻopiʻopiʻo. He said a kapa was shaken, then, If the evil spirit suddenly appears and possesses the patient, then he or she can be immediately saved by the conversation between the practitioner and that spirit. Pukui and others believed kahuna did not have mystical transcendent experiences as described in other religions, although a person who was possessed would go into a trance-like state, it was not an ecstatic experience but simply a communion with the known spirits. Kapu refers to a system of taboos designed to separate the pure from the potentially unclean. Thought to have arrived with Pāʻao, a priest or chief from Tahiti who arrived in Hawaiʻi sometime around 1200 AD, the spiritually pure or laʻa, meaning sacred and unclean or haumia were to be separated. During times of war, the first two men to be killed were offered to the gods as sacrifices, other Kapus included Mālama ʻĀina, meaning caring of the land and Niʻaupiʻo. The Hawaiian islands are all children of Papa, Wākea and Hoʻohokukalani so basically meaning that they are siblings of the Hawaiian chiefs. Second child of Wākea and Hoʻohokukalani became the first Aliʻi Nui and this came to be called Niʻaupiʻo, the chiefly incest to create the godly child. Punishments for breaking the kapu could include death, although if one could escape to a puʻuhonua, kāhuna nui mandated long periods when the entire village must have absolute silence

28.
Native American religion
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Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Traditional Native American ceremonial ways can vary widely, and are based on the histories and beliefs of individual tribes, clans. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices, theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, or some combination thereof. Traditional beliefs are passed down in the forms of oral histories, stories, allegories and principles. From the 1600s European Catholic and Protestant denominations sent missionaries to convert the tribes to Christianity and this forcible conversion and suppression of Indigenous languages and cultures continued through the 1970s. This government persecution and prosecution continued until 1978 with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, some non-Native anthropologists estimate membership in traditional Native American religions in the 21st century to be about 9000 people. Many adherents of traditional spiritual ways also attend Christian services, at least some of the time, since the 80 years of those prior legal persecutions ended with AIRFA, some sacred sites in the United States are now protected areas under law. European Christian missionaries were active and established missions and religious schools among Native peoples. According to Jacob Neusner, Native American Christianity is often fundamentalist in theology, conservative in their practice, for example, St. David Pendleton Oakerhater, who was canonized as an Episcopal saint but was a Sun Dancer, as well. According to James Treat, Native American Christians have constructed and maintained their, Religious identities with a variety of considerations in mind. Many native Christians accomplish this identification without abandoning or rejecting native religious traditions. ”In response, in part Smith said, “In our zeal to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ, we were closed to the value of your spirituality. We ask you to us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ, so our peoples may be blessed. Two years after Smith’s Apology, the All Native Circle Conference was formed in 1988 as a conference of the United Church of Canada. It is “based on different Aboriginal cultural ways of life and languages. ”It understands and honours “the cultural values, mission and ministry of Native Peoples. ”The Earth Lodge Religion was founded in northern California and southern Oregon tribes such as the Wintun. It spread to such as the Achomawi, Shasta, and Siletz. It was also known as the Warm House Dance among the Pomo and it predicted occurrences similar to those predicted by the Ghost Dance, such as the return of ancestors or the worlds end. The Earth Lodge Religion impacted the later practice, the Dream Dance, belonging to the Klamath. Ghost Dance is a general term that encompasses different religious revitalization movements in the Western United States

29.
Creation myth
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A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term often refers to false or fanciful stories, formally. Cultures generally regard their creation myths as true, in the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals and they are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions, found throughout human culture, Creation myth definitions from modern references, A symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe. Creation myths tell us how things began, all cultures have creation myths, they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a deal about who we are. A philosophical and theological elaboration of the myth of creation within a religious community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation, Myth narrates a history, it relates an event that took place in primordial Time. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed, in the past historians of religion and other students of myth thought of them as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. However they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes, The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, the myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity. While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the world, to any assumed spiritual world

30.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing

31.
Taoism
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Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is an idea in most Chinese philosophical schools, in Taoism, however. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, the Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi, is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi. By the Han dynasty, the sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations. In earlier ancient China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, Zhuangzi was the best known of these, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was part of local Chinese shamanic traditions. Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was strong in the southern state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, shamans revealed basic texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century. Institutional orders of Taoism evolved in various strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped into two main branches, Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism. After Laozi and Zhuangzi, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled in form of a canon—the Daozang—which was published at the behest of the emperor, throughout Chinese history, Taoism was nominated several times as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor, Chinese alchemy, Chinese astrology, Chan Buddhism, several martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia, Taoism also has a presence in Hong Kong, Macau, and in Southeast Asia. English speakers continue to debate the preferred romanization of the words Daoism and Taoism, the root Chinese word 道 way, path is romanized tao in the older Wade–Giles system and dào in the modern Pinyin system. In linguistic terminology, English Taoism/Daoism is formed from the Chinese loanword tao/dao 道 way, route, principle and the native suffix -ism. The debate over Taoism vs. Daoism involves sinology, phonemes, loanwords, Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/, but English speakers disagree whether Taoism should be /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/. In theory, both Wade–Giles tao and Pinyin dao are articulated identically, as are Taoism and Daoism, an investment book titled The Tao Jones Averages illustrates this /daʊ/ pronunciations widespread familiarity. In speech, Tao and Taoism are often pronounced /ˈtaʊ/ and ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/, lexicography shows American and British English differences in pronouncing Taoism. Taoist philosophy or Taology, or the mystical aspect — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and these texts were linked together as Taoist philosophy during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before. It is unlikely that Zhuangzi was familiar with the text of the Daodejing, however, the discussed distinction is rejected by the majority of Western and Japanese scholars

32.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun

33.
Shangdi
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Shangdi is the pinyin romanization of two Chinese characters. The word itself is derived from Three Huang and Five Di, including Yellow Emperor, the originator of the Chinese civilization. However, 帝 refers to the High God of Shang, thus means deity, thus, the name Shangdi should be translated as Highest Deity, but also have the implied meaning of Primordial Deity or First Deity in Classical Chinese. The deity preceded the title and the emperors of China were named after him in their role as Tianzi, Shangdi seems to have ruled a hierarchy of other gods controlling nature, as well as the spirits of the deceased. These ideas were later mirrored or carried on by the Taoist Jade Emperor, Shangdi was probably more transcendental than immanent, only working through lesser gods. Shangdi was considered too distant to be worshiped directly by ordinary mortals, the emperors could thus successfully entreat Shangdi directly. Many of the oracle bone inscriptions record these petitions, usually praying for rain, in the later Shang and Zhou dynasties, Shangdi was conflated with Heaven. Shangdi was not just a tribal but instead a good moral force. It could thus be lost and even inherited by a new dynasty, nonetheless, the connection of many rituals with the Shang clan meant that Shang nobles continued to rule several locations and to serve as court advisors and priests. Likewise, the Shangs lesser houses, the shi knightly class, developed directly into the learned Confucian gentry and scholars who advised the Zhou rulers on courtly etiquette, the Confucian classics carried on and ordered the earlier traditions, including the worship of Shangdi. All of them include references, The Four Books mention Shangdi as well but, as it is a later compilation, by the time of the Han dynasty, the influential Confucian scholar Zheng Xuan glossed, Shangdi is another name for Heaven. Dong Zhongshu said, Heaven is the authority, the king of gods who should be admired by the king. In later eras, he was known by the name Heavenly Ruling Highest Deity and, in this usage. In Shang sources, Di is already described as the supreme ordainer of the events occur in nature, such as wind, lightning and thunder. All the gods of nature are conceived as his envoys or manifestations, Shang sources also attest his cosmological Five Ministries. Di, or Tian, as later texts explain, did not receive cult for being too remote for living humans to sacrifice to directly, instead, an intermediary such as an ancestor was necessary to convey to Di the offerings of the living. According to this interpretation, this identification had profound political implications, moreover, Kui is frequently appealed in horizontal relationship with other powers, undermining any portrait of him as the apex of the pantheon. Especially intriguing is the fact that palatial and ceremonial structures of these cultures were carefully aligned to the celestial pole, the interpretation of Shangdi as the celestial pole, Taiyi and as Ku the progenitor of the Shang is not contradictory

34.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks

35.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times

36.
Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form

37.
Tian
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Tiān is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang Dynasty, the Chinese referred to their god as Shàngdì or Dì. During the following Zhou Dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure, Heaven worship was, before the 20th century, an orthodox state religion of China. In Taoism and Confucianism, Tiān is often translated as Heaven and is mentioned in relationship to its aspect of Dì. These two aspects of Daoist cosmology are representative of the nature of Taoism. They are thought to maintain the two poles of the Three Realms of reality, with the middle realm occupied by Humanity, the ancient oracle and bronze ideograms for dà 大 depict a stick figure person with arms stretched out denoting great, large. The oracle and bronze characters for tiān 天 emphasize the cranium of this great, either with a square or round head, two variant Chinese characters for tiān 天 heaven are 兲 and the Daoist coinage 靝. The sinologist Herrlee Creel, who wrote a study on The Origin of the Deity Tien. For three thousand years it has believed that from time immemorial all Chinese revered Tien 天, Heaven, as the highest deity. But the new materials that have available in the present century. It appears rather that Tien is not named at all in the Shang inscriptions, Tien appears only with the Chou, and was apparently a Chou deity. After the conquest the Chou considered Tien to be identical with the Shang deity Ti, first, Creel analyzes all the tian and di occurrences meaning god, gods in Western Zhou era Chinese classic texts and bronze inscriptions. His corpus of authenticated Western Zhou bronzes mention tian 91 times, second, Creel contrasts the disparity between 175 occurrences of di or shangdi on Shang era oracle inscriptions with at least 26 occurrences of tian. Upon examining these 26 oracle scripts that scholars have identified as tian 天 heaven, god, according to tradition, Tang of Shang assembled his subjects to overthrow King Jie of Xia, the infamous last ruler of the Xia Dynasty, but they were reluctant to attack. The king said, Come, ye multitudes of the people, listen all to my words. It is not I, the child, who dare to undertake what may seem to be a rebellious enterprise. Now, ye multitudes, you are saying, Our prince does not compassionate us, I have indeed heard these words of you all, but the sovereign of Hsiâ is an offender, and, as I fear God, I dare not but punish him. Now you are saying, What are the crimes of Hsiâ to us, the king of Hsiâ does nothing but exhaust the strength of his people, and exercise oppression in the cities of Hsiâ

38.
Tengri
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Tengri, is one of the names for the primary chief deity since the early Turkic, Xiongnu, Hunnic, Bulgar and Mongolic peoples. The core beings in Tengrism are Heavenly-Father and Earth Mother and it involves shamanism, animism, totemism and ancestor worship. The oldest form of the name is recorded in Chinese annals from the 4th century BC and it takes the form 撑犁/Cheng-li, which is hypothesized to be a Chinese transcription of Tängri. Alternatively, a reconstructed Altaic etymology from *Taŋgiri would emphasize the gods divinity rather than his domain over the sky, the Turkic form, Tengri, is attested in the 8th century Orkhon inscriptions as the Old Turkic form

39.
Turkic peoples
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The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in central, eastern, northern, and western Asia as well as parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family and they share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The first known mention of the term Turk applied to a Turkic group was in reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century, a letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as the Great Turk Khan. The Orhun inscriptions use the terms Turk and Turuk and this includes Chinese records Spring and Autumn Annals referring to a neighbouring people as Beidi. During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names could be the form of Türk/Türük such as Togarma, Turukha/Turuška, Turukku. But the information gap is so substantial that we cannot firmly connect these ancient people to the modern Turks, turkologist András Róna-Tas posits that the term Turk could be rooted in the East Iranian Saka language or in Turkic. This etymological concept is related to Old Turkic word stems tür, türi-, törü. The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Dingling, Gekun, the Chinese Book of Zhou presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from helmet, explaining that taken this name refers to the shape of the Altai Mountains. During the Middle Ages, various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe were subsumed under the identity of the Scythians, between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples. However, the usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for Türk or vice versa and it is generally agreed that the first Turkic people lived in a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia, with the majority of them living in China historically. Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE, the earliest separate Turkic peoples appeared on the peripheries of the late Xiongnu confederation about 200 BCE. Turkic people may be related to the Xiongnu, Dingling and Tiele people, according to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi, the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period. Turkic tribes such as the Khazars and Pechenegs probably lived as nomads for many years before establishing the Turkic Khaganate or Göktürk Empire in the 6th century and these were herdsmen and nobles who were searching for new pastures and wealth. The first mention of Turks was in a Chinese text that mentioned trade between Turk tribes and the Sogdians along the Silk Road, the first recorded use of Turk as a political name appears as a 6th-century reference to the word pronounced in Modern Chinese as Tujue. The Ashina clan migrated from Li-jien to the Juan Juan seeking inclusion in their confederacy, the tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Juan Juan, Turkic peoples originally used their own alphabets, like Orkhon and Yenisey runiforms, and later the Uyghur alphabet

40.
Mongolic languages
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The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The closest relative of the Mongolic languages appears to be the extinct language Khitan, some linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic, Tungusic, and possibly Koreanic and Japonic as part of the controversial Altaic family, but this has been widely discredited. In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and Southern Mongolian on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolian is to divide it into a Central dialect, an Eastern dialect, a Western dialect, and a Northern dialect. Another problem lies in the comparability of terminology as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy language, dialect. Proto-Mongolic, the language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of Genghis Khan. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol, an exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- do together, which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol. One can speculate that the languages of Donghu, Wuhuan, the closest relative of the languages traced back to Proto-Mongolic appears to be the medieval Khitan language. Khitan has been described as Para-Mongolic, not part of the Mongolic family, once again on the Tabgač language. Ethnic map of Mongolia Monumenta Altaica grammars, texts, dictionaries and bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages

41.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today

42.
Horus
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Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom, different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a falcon or peregrine falcon. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife, Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of the sky, war and hunting. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr. w Falcon, additional meanings are thought to have been the distant one or one who is above, over. As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic dialects variously as hoːɾ or ħoːɾ and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hōros and it also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric names such as Har-si-ese Horus, Son of Isis. Nekheny may have been another falcon god worshipped at Nekhen, city of the falcon, Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette, dating from about the 31st century BC. In early Egypt, Horus was the brother of Isis, Osiris, Set, as different cults formed, he became the son of Isis and Osiris. Isis remained the sister of Osiris, Set and Nephthys, the Pyramid Texts describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new pharaohs. The lineage of Horus, the product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life, the notion of Horus as the pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the pharaoh as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty. Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris, there Isis bore a divine son, Horus. Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to contain the sun. It became said that the sun was his eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the The Contendings of Horus and Seth. As Horus was the victor he became known as ḥr. w wr Horus the Great. In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, Horus left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu, the moon god, and was replaced

43.
Falcon
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Falcons are birds of prey in the genus Falco, which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, adult falcons have thin, tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have flight feathers. This makes flying easier while learning the skills required to be effective hunters as adults. The falcons are the largest genus in the Falconinae subfamily of Falconidae, which also includes another subfamily comprising caracaras. All these birds kill with their beaks, using a tooth on the side of their beaks—unlike the hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey in the Accipitridae, the largest falcon is the gyrfalcon at up to 65 cm in length. The smallest falcons are the kestrels, of which the Seychelles kestrel measures just 25 cm, as with hawks and owls, falcons exhibit sexual dimorphism, with the females typically larger than the males, thus allowing a wider range of prey species. Some small falcons with long, narrow wings are called hobbies, as is the case with many birds of prey, falcons have exceptional powers of vision, the visual acuity of one species has been measured at 2.6 times that of a normal human. Peregrine falcons have been recorded diving at speeds of 200 miles per hour, the Late Latin falco is believed to derive from falx as meaning a sickle, referencing the claws of the bird. In Middle English and Old French, the term faucon refers generically to several captive raptor species, the traditional term for a male falcon is tercel or tiercel, from the Latin tertius because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a falcon is about one-third smaller than a female. A falcon chick, especially one reared for falconry, still in its stage, is known as an eyas. The word arose by mistaken division of Old French un niais, the technique of hunting with trained captive birds of prey is known as falconry. Compared to other birds of prey, the record of the falcons is not well distributed in time. The oldest fossils tentatively assigned to this genus are from the Late Miocene and this coincides with a period in which many modern genera of birds became recognizable in the fossil record. Falcons are roughly divisible into three or four groups, kestrels feed chiefly on terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates of appropriate size, such as rodents, reptiles, or insects. The second group contains slightly larger species, the hobbies and relatives and these birds are characterized by considerable amounts of dark slate-grey in their plumage, their malar areas are nearly always black. They feed mainly on smaller birds, third are the peregrine falcon and its relatives, variably sized powerful birds that also have a black malar area, and often a black cap, as well

A solar representation on an anthropomorphic stele dated from the time period between the Copper Age and the Early Bronze Age, discovered during an archaeological excavation on the Rocher des Doms, Avignon.

Taiyang Shen, the Chinese solar deity

Statue of the sun goddess Xihe charioteering the sun, being pulled by a dragon, in Hangzhou

Genus classification by altitude of occurrence. Multi-level types not limited by altitude include the two main precipitating clouds, cumulonimbus and nimbostratus. The latter has been horizontally compressed in this depiction.

Shangdi (Chinese: 上帝; pinyin: Shàngdì; Wade–Giles: Shang Ti), also written simply , "Emperor"), is the Chinese term for …

Annual heavenly sacrifice (祭天 jìtiān) in honour of the Highest Deity the Heavenly Ruler (皇天上帝 Huángtiān Shàngdì) is held at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. State pomp and a variety of Confucian religious groups have contributed in the reviving of worship of the Highest Deity in the 2000s.

Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and …

Various myths

The Deluge, frontispiece to Gustave Doré's illustrated edition of the Bible. Based on the story of Noah's Ark, this engraving shows humans and a tiger doomed by the flood futilely attempting to save their children and cubs.